Bonnie Styles, Ph.D., is the Executive Director of the Association of Science Museum Directors (ASMD). She oversees the ASMD headquarters in Springfield, IL. Dr. Styles is the Director Emeritus of the Illinois State Museum System and an Adjunct Professor in Anthropology at Northwestern University, Evanston, IL.
ASMD will convene the 2.5 day ASMD 2026 Directors Forum in St. Paul, MN from February 10-12 with travel on February 9 (in time for an evening reception at the conference hotel, the Courtyard Marriott Downtown St. Paul) and February 12 (late afternoon/evening) or February 13. ASMD members Alison Rempel Brown and Holly Menninger will … More 2026 Directors Forum
ASMD served as a co-convener for this event for the 13th consecutive year! An ASMD delegation of members advocated for all museums at this event. Executive Director Bonnie Styles met in the offices of senators and representatives who serve on appropriations subcommittees that fund agencies, including IMLS, NEH, NSF, NASA, and NOAA, that provide crucial … More 2025 Museums Advocacy Day
ASMD convened the ASMD 2025 Directors Forum in Salt Lake City, Utah in February. Our 2.5 day meeting started on February 2 with our traditional informal reception in the evening at the conference hotel. ASMD Secretary-Treasurer Jason Cryan, Executive Director of the Natural History Museum of Utah, was our host. Sessions took place in the … More 2025 Directors Forum in Salt Lake City
The ASMD 2024 Directors Forum convened in Washington D.C. Our co-hosts were Kirk Johnson, ASMD member and Sant Director of the National Museum of Natural History, and Christofer Nelson, President and CEO of the Association of Science and Technology Centers. We had sessions in the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH), the NMNH’s Museum Support … More ASMD 2024 Directors Forum
The Association of Science Museum Directors is a proud supporter of national Museums Advocacy Day, spearheaded by the American Alliance of Museums, in Washington D.C. ASMD again served as a co-convener for the 2024 event, which was held in person on February 26 with congressional meetings on February 27. In 2023, ASMD Executive Director Bonnie … More Advocacy for Museums
We held our ASMD 2023 Directors Forum on January 31, 2022-February 3, 2023 in Cincinnati and Dayton, Ohio. Elizabeth Pierce, President & CEO of the Cincinnati Museum Center, and Tracey Tomme, President & CEO of the Boonshoft Museum of Discovery, co-hosted the meeting. A day trip to Dayton featured the National Museum of the United … More ASMD 2023 Directors Forum
We convened in Seattle for the 2022 ASMD Directors Forum (February 1-4, 2022). The Program Committee chaired by Vice Presidents William Harris (Space Center Houston) and Tracy Calogheros (The Exploration Place + Science Centre), and including other ASMD Board members (President Joe Keiper, Secretary-Treasurer Elizabeth Pierce, and Immediate Past President Todd Boyette), and Host Committee … More 2022 ASMD Directors Forum in Seattle
The 2021 ASMD program committee (Vice Presidents Meg Beckel of the Canadian Museum of Nature and William Harris of Space Center Houston) developed an excellent program tailored to the times for ASMD’s first, and hopefully last, virtual Directors Forum. We offer special thanks to ASTC for hosting us on their zoom platform and providing technical assistance for this event. Presentations and discussions featured impacts of Covid-19, strategies for dealing with the impacts, and planning for alternative revenue streams. A copy of the Final Program is available here.
Images from our 2019 Directors Forum in Rochester and Ithaca, New York and 2020 Directors Forum in Chapel Hill, North Carolina are provided below. We hope that they provide you with a sense of the energy at our meetings that was also captured in our 2021 virtual event. We have scheduled our 2022 Directors Forum in Seattle during the first week in February, and plan to return to our in-person format (see Updates for Members Section).
… More 2021 Virtual Directors Forum
Todd Boyette, Director of the Morehead Planetarium and Science Center hosted the 2020 ASMD Directors Forum in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. The meeting ran from February 17 through noon on February 19. We reserved a block of rooms at the Carolina Inn, an iconic destination hotel in Chapel Hill located on the University of North Carolina campus within a short walking distance from the Morehead Planetarium and Science Center. The program committee, led by Vice Presidents Julie Stein and Joe Keiper, also included Todd Boyette, Elizabeth Pierce, Denise Young, Terri Trotter, and Bonnie Styles. They developed an invigorating program. A copy of the Final Program for the 2020 ASMD Directors Forum is attached here. Please note that registration for the 2020 Forum was limited to ASMD members and assistant directors invited by an ASMD member. If you are not a member, please consider applying for ASMD membership so you will be able to attend a future Forum. … More 2020 Directors Forum in Chapel Hill
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